The best interface is no interface • Hacker News Board

Re: The best interface is no interface

#91

Post by jbrennan » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 3:38 PM UTC

bergie wrote: post #83

jbrennan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. Using AI is a "step 2: ???" solution, and the flaw with it is best exemplified by the columnist who bought a pregnancy book for a pregnant friend on Amazon Flaws like this might exist right now, but that's really a "bug". It's a failure on our part (the software designers and engineers) to build a system that actually works for the human . So sometimes when we try to make our software smart, it ends up being [mad…

Bret Victor's The Magic Ink gives some good starting points for applying context to make software smarter: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/

Yep, I'd already linked to it twice already in this comment thread! I agree fully.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#92

Post by kapnobatairza » Tue, Dec 25, 2012, 2:10 AM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #66

kapnobatairza wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One things that came to mind when reading your comment was some of my frustration using OS X. When an app in OS X or OS X itself stops working you don't get a blue screen or a "this application has crashed" error - it just stops working. Many of my friends would have the false illusion that OS X is much more stable than Windows 7 because they see less error messages.

I used to see the "spinning beachball of death" scenario every now and then, but on Lion and a 2011 Macbook Air I haven't once. Occasionally third party applications will exit and there will be a "____ has quit unexpectedly" message with an option to relaunch. Details are available in logfiles; anyone who has a use for those details most likely knows where to find them. The end user can't do anything with memory addr…

Of course, Apple provides the details for those who care to look, just that it hides the information from the everyday user who doesn't want to. This is just a personal opinion, but just failing is probably less scary to the everyday user than being immediately presented with a bunch of error messages/a blue screen error message - even though they might mean the exactly the same thing.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#93

Post by jlinowski » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 11:08 PM UTC

My response to the article: http://wireframes.linowski.ca/2012/12/calling-your-bull-the-... I think it's stretched. Interfaces still have good characteristics.